Quantitative Performance Assessment and Rational Design of Reducing Materials for Water Treatment

CBET 1333476 Paul G.Tratnyek俄勒冈健康与科学大学有许多成熟的和新兴的水处理技术，基于颗粒材料，通过还原去除污染物。这些技术从降解地下水中氯化溶剂的铁金属反应性屏障，到含有氧化铁的过滤器，用于去除饮用水中的砷。正在进行的努力正在所有方面推进这些技术，主要是通过对新的还原材料进行关于共同污染物的特别测试或对新污染物与共同的还原材料进行测试。然而，目前还没有任何通用的指标或模型可用于通过利用这些技术的共同特征来推动它们的发展。这些工具将促进工艺优化，并能够进行定量的性能评估，以比较相互竞争的替代品或合理设计新的减少材料。该项目旨在通过开发一种灵活、定量和强大的诊断方法来表征水处理系统中使用的所有类型的颗粒状还原材料的反应性，以填补这一空白。该项目的一部分将涉及使用各种可能有用的减少颗粒材料(颗粒金属、金属氧化物、金属硫化物等)测量传统小试反应堆中的污染物降解情况。然而，大部分的实验工作将集中在开发先进的电化学方法来表征材料，这种方法是基于一种新开发的将颗粒形成电极的方法。通过这种电化学方法获得的结果将被应用于更好地理解控制水处理用还原材料性能的基本过程，并为可用于预测新的、尚未测试的材料性能的定量模型提供数据。使用这些模型做出的初步预测将进行实验验证，以验证模型并展示其实用价值。要获得清洁的水，需要各种方法来去除各种污染物，该项目旨在改进现有的水处理方法。该项目的重点是化学污染物，但正在研究的处理方法也可以用于控制其他类型的污染物，如病原菌、病毒等。除了识别新的/更好的水处理还原材料，以及开发识别和优化水处理材料的系统方法外，该项目还将与水处理行业专业人员的培训计划建立新型的合作伙伴关系，以最大限度地发挥本项目和未来研发项目的影响。该奖项由美国国家科学基金会S国际与综合活动办公室共同资助。

CBET 1333476Paul G. TratnyekOregon Health & Science UniversityThere are many established and emerging water treatment technologies based on granular materials that remove contaminants by reduction. These technologies range from reactive barriers of iron metal that degrade chlorinated solvents in groundwater to filters containing iron oxides that remove arsenic from drinking water. Ongoing efforts are advancing these technologies on all fronts, mostly through ad hoc testing of novel reducing materials on common contaminants or testing of novel contaminants with common reducing materials. However, there are not yet any general metrics or models that can be used to advance these technologies by taking advantage of their common characteristics. Such tools would facilitate process optimization and enable quantitative performance assessment for comparison of competing alternatives or rational design of novel reducing materials. This project aims to fill this gap by developing a flexible, quantitative, and powerful diagnostic approach to characterizing the reactivity of all types of granular reducing materials used in water treatment systems. Part of the project will involve measuring contaminant degradation in conventional bench-scale reactors using a wide variety of potentially useful reducing particulate materials (granular metals, metal oxides, metal sulfides, etc.). However, most of the experimental work will focus on developing advanced electrochemical methods for characterizing the materials based on a newly developed method for forming the particles into electrodes. The results obtained by this electrochemical approach will be applied to better understand the fundamental processes controlling the performance of reducing materials for water treatment and to provide data for quantitative models that can be used to predict the performance of new, as yet untested, materials. Preliminary predictions made using these models will be tested experimentally to validate the models and demonstrate their practical utility.Access to clean water requires methods to remove a variety of contaminants, and this project aims to improve on the water treatment methods that are currently available. The focus of this project is on chemical contaminants, but the treatment methods under investigation can also serve to control other types of contaminants, such as pathogenic bacteria, viruses, etc. In addition to the identification of new/better reducing materials for water treatment, and the development of systematic methods for identification and optimization of materials for water treatment, this project also will initiate a novel partnership with training programs for water treatment industry professionals to maximize the impacts of this and future research and development projects.This award is being co-funded by NSF?s Office of International and Integrative Activities.